5 Social TV Apps That Let You Check In To What You’re Watching [Updated]

These days everything is getting more social. People tweet before taking a shower, post pictures of their lunch to Facebook and share everything from their hopes and aspirations to the gross thing they saw someone do on the bus ride to work. So it only makes sense that more and more people are interesting in sharing what they’re watching on television, and lucky for these people there are a lot of ways to do it. Here’s our list of 5 great social television apps that let you check in to what you’re watching, share recommendations with friends and discover new content.

IntoNow

IntoNow is new on the social TV scene, but they have introduced a feature that pushes them straight to the top of our list – a patented sound-recognition technology called SoundPrint that hears and recognizes what you’re watching, right down to the episode. That’s right – all you have to do is tap a little green button and the app identifies what you’re watching and lets you share it with your friends on Twitter or Facebook. According to the description in the iTunes store, the IntoNow app will “identify live TV, or anything that’s run on TV in the last 5 years, from your television, computer or mobile device.”

In addition to identifying shows and letting you share them with friends, IntoNow also provides full episode and cast info, notifies you when your friends are watching the same show as you, lets you know what your friends are watching, and provides one-click access to IMDb, iTunes and Netflix.

Tunerfish

Tunerfish is another social television app that we’ve been following since their launch back in May. Tunerfish also lets users check-in to what they’re watching – on television or on the web – and share it with their friends, as well as discover new content based upon what their friends are watching.

Tunerfish also runs fun campaigns for certain shows, allowing people who watch and share to earn fun badges. Check out our coverage of the campaign Tunerfish ran with HBO for the launch of True Blood over the summer.

Miso

Miso offers yet another option for users looking to have fun while checking in to their favorite television shows from their iPhones and iPads. Launched shortly before Tunerfish, Miso also offers achievement badges that users unlock as they watch more shows.

Back in December, Miso announced some new features, which we covered here on Social Times. They’ve put the focus on specific episodes, while some similar services allow people to check into shows in general and not episodes. They’ve also allowed users to update metadata for specific shows, which makes them unique. Check out the video below, which illustrates some of Miso’s features.

Yap.TV

Think of Yap.TV as your own social TV Guide, letting you see what other fans are saying about your favorite shows on Twitter, see what your friends are watching, invite friends to group chat about your favorite shows, see what’s on television in your local area, surf a picture-based TV show guide to discover new content, vote on fan polls and more.

The free Yap.TV app is available in the iTunes store for iPhone, iTouch and iPad and puts a focus on television fandom. It isn’t about badges and achievements like Tunerfish and Miso, but it is all about starting conversation around your favorite shows.

Philo

Philo is another fun social TV app for iPhone and Android that lets you discover what your friends are watching, check in to your other shows and interact with other viewers, and win points, awards and real prizes. See how you rank against other users on your favorite shows, comment, interact and make your television experience truly social.

GetGlue

(Update: February 2, 2011) I know we said five Social TV apps, but we wanted to update our post to throw in a sixth contender– GetGlue. GetGlue is a social network for entertainment and what’s cool about it is that in addition to letting users check-in to TV shows or movies it also lets you check-in to whatever music you’re listening to, book you’re reading, video game you’re playing, celebrity your chatting about, topic you’re thinking about or even wine you’re drinking.

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